Need iDevice Help? Three Tips for Common iPhone and iPad Problems

While most of the time iDevices make our lives easier, sometimes they can make us want to scream in frustration. If you’ve ever had issues with the Home or Power buttons or wondered how to get more battery life out of the device, read on for a few simple solutions to common iDevice problems. Slow It Down The Home button on the iPhone, as well as on the iPad, is by far the most used physical button on the device. The Home button is used to exit apps, multi-task while using the device and engage Siri (if you have an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5). You may notice, however, that sometimes your commands don’t always register or are misread. This could be because the Home button click speed may be too fast. Many of you may not realize that iOS actually gives you a way to customize the Home button click speed. Since iOS will always register fast taps, the only settings offered are to slow it down. If you find that your iPhone is registering double taps as two single taps, slowing the speed down a bit could prevent this issue from happening. Here's how to adjust the Home button click speed:

• Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
• Tap on General.
• Scroll down a ways and now tap on Accessibility.Under the Physical & Motor section, tap on the option for Home-click Speed. Here you can choose between Default, Slow and Slowest.

(i)Phone Home As mentioned above, the Home button is the most used physical button on the iPhone. It is no surprise then that one of the most common hardware issues with iDevices is Home button failure. Power button failure is another hardware issue that many iDevice users face. Home and Power button issues can present as either of these buttons becoming hard to press, not reading presses at all, or intermittently malfunctioning. There is a way around them by using the Assistive Touch accessibility feature. This will give you a virtual Home button and Power button that can supplement the hardware. It isn't the most ideal solution, but if you need a quick one it will work until you can get the button(s) fixed or replaced.

• Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone.
• Now tap on General.
• Scroll down and tap on Accessibility.
• Scroll down again and tap on Assistive Touch under the Physical & Motor section.
• Turn Assistive Touch to On.

You'll now notice a white dot appear on your screen that will remain there. You can tap on this to expand the Assistive touch menu. The Home option will allow you to tap it in the place of a physical Home button and be returned to the Home screen from wherever you are. To access the Power button function, tap on the Device menu and then tap on the Lock Screen icon and your screen will shut off. Running Out of Juice iPhone and iPad battery life is a precious commodity we just can't seem to get enough of. All of our social networks, email accounts, texts, and other apps want to send us notifications, which in turn, consumes more battery life. Try the following changes in the Notification Center to save some battery life.

• Launch the Settings app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
• Tap on Notifications.
• Find an app that frequently sends you notifications and tap on its name.
• Scroll down towards the bottom and you'll see an option for View in Lock Screen.
• Turn this option to Off for any apps that aren't important enough to be displayed on your Lock Screen.

By doing this, you'll still receive push notifications and you'll hear the tones, your screen just will not light up and they won't filter into your actual Lock Screen area. Upon unlocking your iPhone or iPad, checking Notification Center will still show them, they just won't appear in the Lock Screen portion. Less screen use equals better battery life, sometimes up to 15 to 25% more per day.

Author Bio: Jennifer Frakes is a social media marketer and blogger who specializes in writing about technology and IT solutions.

Mobile negotiations: The death of the price tag

The price tag was invented by John Wanamaker in the 1870s. Before the invention of the price tag, most buying was done through negotiations. Negotiations provide an avenue for a buyer and seller to understand each other’s needs better. For thousands of years sellers would negotiate with their customers and learned a lot about what the customer cared about. The weakness in this approach started to surface with theinvention
of the department store. The increase in sales volume made it impractical to negotiate every sale on the spot. That is why Wanamaker’s idea “if everyone was equal under God, then everyone should be equal under price” ended up being such a hit. Businesses and consumers would lose the ability to communicate what matters to each other, but would benefit from an invention that made shopping much easier.

The price tag suited the marketing philosophy of the era well and quickly took over as the way business
was carried out. The late 19th century marketing philosophy was very different from the modern
marketing philosophy. Today understanding customer needs is extremely important. We live in a search
society and vocalize our needs hundreds of times per week with random queries on Google. Marketers
sift through these queries to try to figure out what matters to customers. This data is then used to modify
all aspects of the product and business model to better satisfy the customer that a business chooses to
serve. Figuring out what really mattered to the customer was not as important as it is today. In the late
19th century the product came first, not the customer. Marketing was all about convincing you to buy a
product they already made.

Even 40 years later individual customer needs did not matter as much. Ford famously wrote in his 1909
autobiography: "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black".
General Motors started to change this in the 1920s with the creation of the color research lab to provide
customers color options and in 1926 they introduced the idea of rolling out a new car model every year.
Even with these ground breaking innovations, there was still a limit as to how far a business would go to
cater to individual needs. This was because making stuff required large investments in factories that
could not be easily changed to cater to many needs.

The search society we have become is one assault on the humble price tag. Another assault comes from
the fact that making stuff is becoming less expensive and we are on the verge of a mass customization
society. As new technologies like 3-D printing develop, customers will come to expect products to be
designed to fit their specific needs like a glove. Businesses that understand their customers the best and
meet those needs most closely with new ways of making stuff, will be the winners in the mass customization future.

Let’s not jump too far into the 3-D printing future and let’s instead talk about what mobile negotiations can
do for us right now. All negotiations are really opportunities to capture value that is inevitably left on the
table. Let’s say I’m staying at a hotel and I value the following things, they are listed in order of
importance: being picked up from the airport, VIP access to the club, VIP area by the pool, a complementary cigar and a hammock by the beach. There is absolutely no way for me to communicate
these needs to the hotel. The hotel misses the opportunity to learn what really matters to me and the relative importance I place on each of these things.

Further, let’s say that the hotel really prides itself on having a dozen bell hops, a casino, Frette Linens,
DVD Players, Daily Newspaper, Alarm clocks, Individual thermostat control, GE Advantium Convection
Oven, etc. There is no way for me to communicate that I really don’t care about any of these things. If I
had the ability to communicate what mattered to me and the order in which these things mattered, the
hotel could change its business model to better suite my needs. Of course, it would be foolish for them to
modify their business model for just one person, but with data from enough customers they may want to
modify their business model. This could help them maximize profit with their current customer base or
increase revenue through new more precisely satisfied customers.

This would be great for the hotel, but it would also be great for me. Not only will have I have more of my
needs met, but the happiness per dollar would improve. Through the negotiation process, the hotel and I
can trade things of unequal value. I may really value something that the hotel can satisfy easily and vice
versa. The value does not have to be expressed in price. A hotel has thousands of ways it can create
value for a customer from a free dinner, to accelerated check out. A customer also has thousands of
ways to create value for a business. Some customers are more expensive than others because of their
needs and how they ask that those needs to be met. For instance, a customer can choose to have the
AC in the room set at a moderate temperature instead of keeping it really cold.

The third assault on the price tag comes from the increased comfort people have making purchases on-
line. This means that the negotiation can happen on-line and not in person. A hotel could route the
negotiations to a negotiation center in India where a customer service agent can negotiate the
transaction. The 1870’s scalability problem of face to face negotiation goes away.

Understanding customer needs and preferences is critical in a search society that expects highly tailored
products and services. Technology is now allowing businesses to reengage their customers with a
method that was preferred for thousands of years. Using a method from the past will be the key to
satisfying the customers of the future.

Ramon Andino
Author, inventor, creator and mobile negotiations expert

Ramon Andino is the creator of zopaf, a novel salary negotiation app. The app couples the Harvard
Business School negotiation class with his experiences modeling jet engines at GE. Together, these
experiences are helping the world unlock and capture value that would otherwise be left on the table. The level of insight provided by zopaf was only available to a select few, until now

iPhone 5C: Cheaper Version of Apple iPhone?

A gadget site Nowhereelse.fr has discovered a leaked photo of packaging for what appears to be the iPhone 5C.

Chinese website, WeiPhone shows white plastic boxes marked iPhone 5C complete with the Apple logo. It's hard to confirm if the packaging boxes are genuine, or whether they're being made for Apple's upcoming low-cost iPhone.

The leaked picture was posted on Chines website WeiPhone and was first spotted by Nowhereelse.fr.

If these boxes are genuine, then it's likely that Apple would use them for it's budget iPhone which is rumoured to come in a number of colour options.

The budget iPhone has made several appearances in pictures and videos.

4 Best Ways to Better Your Social Media Marketing

Social media is an integral part of any online marketing campaign. While it is an important tool, it is also the most unpredictable one. Each platform always seems to evolve, update and change its settings, which is why brands also need to constantly adjust.

An influential tool to all marketers, social media marketing can bring about a great impact that can lead to better numbers— only if it’s exercised properly.

So to get you on the right track, here are the best ways to improve your social media marketing strategies.


1. Give greater regard to Google+.

Understand that Google+ is the brainchild of the most powerful search engine known to man. It is the only social media platform that is closely knitted with your SEO presence and has the ability to make both your social media marketing and SEO efforts strengthened.

Take for example the different features of Google+, Authorship and Places. Google+ authorship is what gives you that little thumbnail of the author beside his/ her content in the SERP. These are given more priority when it comes to ranking, as they are tied in with their Google+ profiles.

Google+ Places can influence users who are searching for local businesses. When you are listed within their directory, you have greater chances of being found by your market. So never disregard this platform, as it can directly affect your SEO presence.


2. Get rid of automation.

We understand that everyone gets busy that it can get tiring updating your Facebook status and your tweets daily. That’s why a lot of social media marketers end up automating their updates— which is one of the biggest mistakes one can ever make.

It’s important to maintain a personal relationship with your market. When you flood their feed with automated posts at a certain time everyday, you’re losing that relationship and turning into a robotic marketer.

It does get challenging but manually posting updates and tailor fitting them for each platform will make things more effective. A tip here is to have a content team that will constantly rotate and update your platforms.


3. Track if your traffic’s coming from social media.

One of the biggest challenges businesses face is to make sense if their social media strategies are actually making tangible numbers. Before, it was hard to track if the web traffic generated is from Facebook, Twitter and such— but not anymore.

Thanks to UTM (Urchin Tracking Module), you can know tag the URL of your posts so you know they are coming from your social media efforts. From here, the information will be added under “Traffic Sources”.

This is a highly effective tool, as it tells you whether or not your social media campaign is generating numbers or an actual flop. The next time around, you’d be able to develop your campaigns more and keep it targeted.



4. Respond to your customers’ queries.

Big brands have made the big mistake of not responding to their customers’ queries, comments and feedback on social media, especially when there are issues they need to address.

Always remember that your social media platforms are your market’s direct line to you. You should make it easy for them to connect with you if they need to. Whether it’s a compliment, a question or even a constructive criticism, respond to them.

Social media is and will be one of the pinnacles of successful online marketing. So consider these tips if you want to remain significant for your market and within your industry.

Kole Mallillin is a Content Specialist for Webcada, an SEO company in Singapore. She spends the rest of her time guest-blogging for various websites.

Call of Duty coming to haunt Wii U too!

Nintendo America announced Call of Duty: Ghosts will becoming to Wii U. The Wii U version, previously listed on retailers but unconfirmed until now, launches alongside Xbox 360, PS3, and PC siblings on November 5. The CoD is also coming to PS4 and Xbox One, but those versions remain undated.

Source: Joystiq!